End of Term Review

My review at the end of the term went well and gave me many new ideas. It was held in the BFA studio and my panel consisted of John Park, Colin Ives, Ty Warren and Jesse Sugarmann. I decided to focus more specifically on the sensational aspect of urban spaces, and the visual over stimulation of large metropolitan areas. Some people on the committee suggested I deal strictly with environmental issues. Although this is something I care about, it is not where my passion is. Anyway, I consider the over visual stimulation of larger city's to be a kind of pollution all its own. From my review, an interesting collection of websites came about:

http://www.192021.org/
film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103767/
http://www.woot.com/

Photographing the Urban Environment

For some five or six summers I worked construction. During this time we traveled up and down the west coast, staying in random (and often small) towns for weeks at a time. I often would go out with my camera and explore the surrounding urban environment. I have begun compiling these photographs (and others) of urban spaces specifically for this project. Unfortunately, I've begun to realize that most of the photos taken from my construction experiences were from small towns and aren't in at all like the major metropolis's I wish to explore.

View Photographs From:
Eugene, OR
China
Seattle, WA

Inspirations for this Project

China
-limitless colors
-commotion, business
-energy
-lights

YOU TUBE LINKS:
nanjing road
big coke

Mondrian
-emphasis of the primary colors
-color relationships
-lines constructed with awareness creating rhythm
-simplification of forms


Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie-Woogie 1942-1943, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Kandinsky
-uses of color
-philosophies on inner necessity
-spirit and outlook on human emotion
-interest in color symbolism and color psychology


Wassily Kandinsky's Composition VII, 1913. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Society of the Spectacle - Guy Debord


"All that was once directly lived has become mere representation." -Nicholson-Smith translation, thesis 1.
"The decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing." -Ibid., thesis 17.
"The spectacle is not a collection of images, rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images."

Dziga Vertov - Man With a Movie Camera

-excitement and passion for a growing city
-unique angles of a city
-portraying human interaction with the city



The Industrial Revolution, late 18th and 19th Century
-move from a static society to a bustling one
-machinery and factories
-spirit of invention
-excitement of building and creating

2 Diagrams for Installation Proposals

Now that I've decided to incorporate a time based element, it is important to consider how the two elements of the project will be presented. One possible proposal is to leave a blank, white rectangle in the middle of the drawing. The time based element would then be projected into this space.

The second proposal is to have the drawing and the time based element side by side to each other. For compositional reasons, I feel that these should be the same size, or at least the same height.

Their are pros and cons to either set up, but projecting the time based element "into" the drawing seems like the most interesting use of the two.

NEW ARTIST STATEMENT

bfa statement:

Above me, below me and to either side were lights. Lights of all colors, flashing sporadically, seductively, each with their own sense of urgency. Neon lights that grew from the sides of buildings as if they were alive, and they consumed entire structures whole. There was no end in sight to this limitless symphony of color and chaos. I shared this experience with more than a million other people, who made the landscape even more surreal and overwhelming. This was my first experience in a major metropolis. I was walking along Nanjing Road in Shanghai, China when this barrage of intense visual stimulus struck me. Nanjing Road is known as the busiest street in the world.

This excitement, the movement, and the perpetual energy of urban spaces have always inspired me. There is an inherent sense of chaos to an urban space that compels me to explore and ultimately become a part of its process. Quite literally, I have explored the urban space for years using cameras. My goal on these outings has always been the same: to capture and identify the smaller elements that begin this system. At this level, a much different structure begins to reveal itself. It is one of order and simplicity. In larger metropolitan areas, I believe it is this underlying structure that allows the chaos to function as it does.

I am interested in both where this chaos begins, but also where it will lead. How limitless is mankind’s ambition to build? How will this ambition and desire transform the landscape? In Shanghai, over 400 high-rise buildings are built every year. The cityscape literally evolves before your eyes. Obviously, this rapid expansion comes at a price. It drains natural resources, compromises the living situations for millions in the city, and has numerous other implications to the environment.

I want to address these issues by creating a fantasy urban landscape. My urban landscape will be inspired from my own personal experiences in urban settings, my photographs and videos of various cities, and from my own imagination. I plan on using vector graphics as my primary tool for illustration. Upon completion, the scale of my urban landscape will be large. This is to convey the notion of a limitless urban space. Through detail and a wide color palette, I also hope to convey the chaos and energy inherent in all large urban spaces. To push my concept even further, I want to create a time-based element that will accompany my illustration.

This time-based element will utilize the buildings and other forms I have created in Illustrator to construct an entirely new landscape, one that literally does evolve before your eyes. Using programming, I essentially will bring my cityscape to life. Buildings will either spring up from the ground, disappear, or be replaced by other buildings. The end result will be an ongoing, ever-changing urban space. A time feature will let the viewer know how long the space has been evolving. The illustration accompanying the piece will be a reference point as to where the landscape initially began.

Outline for New Artist Statement

1. Background Story - my personal experiences with big cities
2. Passion relating to the subject
3. Theme/Subject - fantasy city, limitless space, ordered chaos
4. Process - inability to draw, years of night time photography in cities
5. Event Work - idea for final piece

My Original Artist Statement Sucks

To fix this, I met with Professor Tan and discussed my thoughts on the project so far. I also went back and did additional research on the industrial revolution, Russian constructivism, and looked at Dziga Vertov's Man With Camera.

Meeting With Professor Tan:

-mega city
-constructed space
-future of constructed spaces
-sensation of urban space
-where are we headed?
-imaginative, combined with real experience
-vectors are mathematical representation of form
-chaos and order; structure; traffic patters
-rythm
-urban space: fantasy
-2d space is fictional from the beginning
-city space is 3d
-collapsing experiences into 2d plane
-what can man made be? or mean? how far can it go?
-a limitless space
-the industrial revolution
-generating a city through programming
-everyday the landscape would be different; it evolves
-vectors are readily portable
-changing landscape
-moving elements vs. time based

Brainstorming:




-the possibilities of what man can build
-fantasy city based on real experiences, imagination
-2d image of a 3d environment
-negative chaos/positive chaos